Tax Cuts Would Lift Economy, GOP While Sinking Dems

In September of this year, President Donald Trump spoke with reporters after landing on Air Force One, in Fort Myers, Florida. Mr. Trump has taken the hard stance that slashing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to as low as 15 percent would free up cash. (Evan Vucci/AP)

Eureka! Former Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, R-N.Y., has discovered the formula for delivering a 20 percent corporate-tax rate in 2018 — as the U.S. House wishes — not 2019, as the U.S. Senate voted, thus flirting with GOP political suicide.

And how would conferees "pay for" such history-making tax relief to American business, one year earlier than the Senate wants? The conference committee should adopt the House’s $1,600-per-child tax credit, not the Senate’s $2,000 per child credit.

As McCaughey explains, the ensuing $150 billion savings would cover more than the roughly $127 billion needed to make U.S. companies globally tax-competitive — in 2018.

Today’s per-child tax credit is $1,000, so inserting the House language into the final tax measure would increase by 60 percent the tax credit for "the children."

However, this would not double that tax benefit, as the Senate desires. In exchange for a mere 60 percent more love than today’s Internal Revenue Code shows our boys and girls, every American — even the childless — would benefit from giving U.S. job creators their biggest tax cut ever, and in just over three weeks, not 13 months.

McCaughey, whose 1994 New Republic analysis fatally wounded Hillarycare, has worked her magic again, but in reverse: Rather than kill a bill that deserved to die, her proposal would save Republicans from a possibly recession-creating one-year delay in corporate-tax relief. If she prevails, CEOs would be incented to hire, invest, and produce, with the full advantage of the 20 percent corporate rate — as soon as New Year’s Day.

This would be far better for all Americans than if business owners and executives sat on their hands for 12 months, awaiting these inducements until 2019 — almost certainly slowing the economy. Such doldrums would crush GOP prospects in the November 2018 midterm elections.

This great policy is also great politics.

Although it probably would do little for growth, the House’s expanded child credit would give parents 60 percent more per kid than they see now. This qualifies as middle-class tax relief.

More importantly, a 20 percent U.S. corporate-tax rate, significantly below the global average of 23 percent, likely would unleash economic growth well above last quarter’s 3.3 percent GDP expansion. (Keep in mind: a 20 percent corporate tax would be nearly 43 percent below the current 35 percent commercial levy.) Next year’s output boost could dispatch the lie that America is cursed with a stagnant "new normal," à la Obama’s comatose 1.5 percent average annual growth.

If the economy soars next year, Republicans likely would keep the U.S. House next November. And if they maintain their existing margin and gain at least eight Senate seats among the 25 that Democrats must defend, Republicans could win a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.

This scenario would vindicate House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The $1.5 trillion GOP-Trump tax cut indeed could be "Armageddon," as she called it — not for America, but for Democrats.

Republican conferees should follow McCaughey’s other key piece of advice: They should heed the Senate and make Obamacare voluntary by junking the individual-coverage mandate. Those who want Obamacare may keep it. Those who do not could make other arrangements without being taxed 2.5 percent of household income or $700 (whichever is higher) for not buying something that Uncle Sam demands they purchase against their will. Since 80 percent of the 6.7 million Americans who paid this tax penalty in 2016 made less than $50,000, sparing them this costly indignity also constitutes a middle-class tax cut.

Once again, Betsy McCaughey is right, as she so often is. Peace be upon her.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor with National Review Online. He has been a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Read more opinions from Deroy Murdock — Click Here Now.

A 20 percent U.S. corporate-tax rate, significantly below the global average of 23 percent, would unleash economic growth well above last quarter’s 3.3 percent GDP expansion. The GOP-Trump tax cut could be Armageddon for as Democrats.